[Cringing Negativism Network]

I agree.

I am all for giving him a huge “say so” in credit, but I don’t want that just to be presented after Palin had already ran for Vice President in 2008 with half of America supporting here as an in-effect Tea Party candidate.

That is my point. 2008 was already a Tea Party race to me.

I’m sure I wan’t alone in that.

So sure his rant was a formative moment, but there were other earlier formative moments as well.

Including the entire 2008 Presidential race.

Not for McCain. For Palin.

[NFHale]

I understand you, brother.

He just put the name to the existing energy, basically.

And it WAS an epic rant. I loved it...

McCain did one good thing, and that was to bring Sarah into the light. He also put her in crosshairs, but the left will always show you who threatens them most like that.

[ansel12]

I also trace the roots to Palin, choosing her exposed something that had always been hidden, just how much many of our leading columnists, and campaign professionals and GOP supporting organizations had hated and feared us, remember the Peggy Noonan type shockers, with some of them actually voting and endorsing Obama, to stop whatever it was that Palin was unlocking and inspiring?

Palin exploded on us, and created something new, and while most of us were discouraged and the party broken by the Obama takeover, Palin never wavered, she never even took a breath, she instantly went to campaigning for a Governor's race within weeks of that election, and then kept up the fight, until something came from her inspiration.

For many months she was taking all of the medias's hate, and doing it alone, and proving that it wasn't fatal, from her courage, we started seeing other's slowly emerge, and testing the waters, getting bolder, remember how Perry and DeMint, seemed to gain boldness from watching her, Palin was injecting a swagger and confidence into what had at first been a fairly timid and splintered conservative movement, Palin nationalized us, united us, gave us a symbol and a feeling of being a coherent national force. We should not overlook the fact that her being a sitting Governor, and the recent Vice Presidential candidate, gave us a lot of instant weight.

Palin wasn't the leader of the tea party, or the founder/creator, but we all sensed and knew, that she was our girl, our mascot, or unifying symbol, our publicist, I don't know the word, but she was a giant force related to the tea party, I just don't think it would have gone so well without a Sarah Palin proceeding it, and as a part of it. Palin was the crowd and media drawing phenomena, everywhere she went it was 10,000 people and overflow crowds.

Remember events like Searchlight, Nev. March 27, 2010 when about 20,000 showed up, Where CNN reported
"Former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin there in Searchlight, Nev., was the backyard of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, but today it's the backdrop of this Tea Party Express - making a stop here," Whitfield said. "Hundreds of people, at least dozens of people - we haven't gotten a count of how many people turned out there. We heard Sarah Palin talk about everything about the campaign, to unseat Sen. Reid to what she calls ObamaCare, on the heels of that health care vote and even talking about her definition of her love of America."